The Church of The True Saab reports rather breathlessly that a YADTFSS (yet another deal to finally save Saab) has been found. The organ that prides itself to have knowledge of insider information (which it usually never releases) relies on Sweden’s TTELA, which says (translation courtesy Church of The True Saab : )

“According to information available to TTELA, after long negotiations in Stockholm, an ownership structure has now been found for Saab, hope is that it will be approved on all levels, even GM.

The structure has been signed by Victor Muller and is developed with the chinese partner Youngman. Exactly how the suggestion looks is unclear, but Youngman seems to have backed down from its previous desire to take a majority part in Saab. It is not unlikely that Youngmans part is now below 20% to agree to the terms set by General Motors.”

The Swedish wire service thinks Pangda is not part of the deal. As indicated here several times, Pangda has its own problems in China and has told our sources in China that they are growing tired of the whole Saab story. Says TTELA:

“Pang Da has not been present at the negotiations in Stockholm during these last few days. This new deal is likely Saabs only way of avoiding bankruptcy. The papers were sent over to GM yesterday and right now, the tension is high as to what the reaction might be in Detroit.”

“General Motors Co. said Wednesday it remains skeptical about a Chinese rescue plan for Saab Automobile even as one potential Chinese investor said taking control of the troubled Swedish car maker isn’t its main goal.

GM, which owns the technology on which several Saab models are based, doesn’t believe that a Chinese takeover of Saab would be in the best interest of its shareholders given it is a major player in its own right in the Chinese car market. The Swedish auto maker, currently owned by Swedish Automobile NV , has been operating under creditor protection since September.

“GM has not changed its position,” spokesman James Cain told Dow Jones Newswires.”

It becomes rather old that these new deals always come up when Saab is about to go bankrupt. Salaries have not been paid. A check from Youngman is supposedly in the hands of the chronically unreliable Chinese mail. The unions are ready to request bankruptcy this coming week.

“As if you didn’t figure out by now, this would be the appropriate time to politelylobby GM to please approve this deal (or at least counter with an acceptable revision). Not that anyone needed reminding, their Facebook wall has been flooded for weeks.

Recommended

I like my Saab alot but have slowly become totally disgusted with the egotistical asses that run Saabsunited. If Saab survives it will be not because of them, but despite what they have done. They really have to stop their crap of “I know, but won’t say.”. Screw them and their fancy new web site and what they pretend to know. Even poor Victor Muller doesn’t fully know.

If Saab survives it will be not because of them, but despite what they have done.

Er, it’s just a blog. Whether Saab lives or dies will have nothing to do with the comments posted on a fanboy blog.

Blaming that blog for Saab’s liquidation would be akin to faulting the Allpar fansite for the Chrysler bankruptcy. It’s not as if there is a financier out there who is saying, “Well, we were going to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to Saab, but thanks to that Facebook campaign, now we’re going to buy pork bellies, instead.”

Agree 100% jaspers. My namesake “Jeff” who runs the place these days is particularly annoying with his constant “I know something you don’t know,” BS and his banning of anyone who says anything against St Victor and now North Street Capital.

With that in mind I think its fairly easy to guess who the mysterious new suitor is. I’m sure if it is NSC, GM will consider the bid very thoughtfully & then 15 seconds later tell Mr SixPack & Muller to take a long walk off a short plank.
If the true believers really think that is going to be the answer then they are going to be sadly mistaken. But hey, what do we know? Someone on there last night said that the mystery suitor was BMW. Seems as likely as the favourite potential saviour that is always being mentioned on that board…. Apple.

BMW might not be far feteched. They already agreed on the small engine deal for SAAB.
Another name I wonder about–pure speculation– is FIAT. Sergio was looking their way a while back.
I truly feel sorry for Victo Muller and what he has gone through.
Finally, when I purchased by SAAB Aeo in 2006 I didn’t realize at the time oe much of GM was in it.
What have 2.000 engineers at SAAB been doing?

BMW don’t need it and I would imagine FIAT will have their own problems shortly with whats happening to the Italian economy. I can’t believe that any other Western car maker would have the funding or the interest to buy the company.
The only people with any funding right now are the Chinese (and it looks like that isn’t going to happen.), the Indians and the Gulf States.
The Gulf states have no history of building cars (apart from taking a share in Ferrari.) but if they were to throw money at a failing car company they wouldn’t choose a company with so little left to offer as Saab.
I must say though, I’m quite surprised that Muller hasn’t hawked his wares around to TATA. I would have thought they might have had a possible interest in a FWD ‘premium’ brand and they seem to have worked wonders with Jaguar. Maybe they’ve already had a good look through the books?
I wonder when GM will break the news? In the morning before the markets open or in the evening after Victor has made a little bit of last minute profit on the share price?

There’s only one reason I could think of that BMW or FIAT would have any interest in picking up what’s left of Saab – the factory in Trollhattan. It is a very state-of-the-art, efficient factory and could be an easy way to increase production of, say, additional 3-series cars, which BMW has no problem selling. But as far as actually saving the brand, I think BMW is far too shrewd to try and reanimate Saab at this point, and FIAT has its own problems to focus on, like bringing Alfa Romeo back to glory.

“There’s only one reason I could think of that BMW or FIAT would have any interest in picking up what’s left of Saab – the factory in Trollhattan. It is a very state-of-the-art, efficient factory and could be an easy way to increase production of, say, additional 3-series cars, which BMW has no problem selling.”

Except it is located in one very expensive country. Any manufacturing expansion, if not in Germany (for BMW), would be in cheaper locations such as Eastern Europe, North America, or China.

You’re probably right on that one, whynot. It might not be unreasonable for the factory to become a specialized site for small-run production, though, like Valmet in Finland, which previously manufactured Porsche Boxsters. The Saab workforce is experienced but, sad to say, recently experienced in producing relatively small runs of vehicles.

Saabsunited is the re-incarnation of Commodore Amiga fan boys about 20+ years ago. I had the computer, liked it, but that is where it ended. 20 years on, some still haven’t let go and still believe that the Amiga “RULZ!!!!”.

Maybe there’s a language issue, but when I read grown people stating that:

Someone on SU yesterday mentioned NSC. The poster got stepped on and groveled for forgiveness.

But for some reason, I go back there and keep reading. While I feel for anyone with real skin (the workers ,suppliers, dealers) in the game (Not VM and company), I wonder what the tools at SU will do once this mess ends. I don’t think it is going to end well.

Swedish TV is reporting tonight that “The Deal” is 19.99% Youngman, 50.1% SWAN, 30% “a major international bank” & no PangDa at all. Within this funding the loan to the EIB will be paid off & the wages shoud be paid tomorrow.
Couple of things about this. Firstly how can SWAN own 50.1% when the company is basically bankrupt? Methinks Mr SixPack will be claiming that he will backing Mr Muller. But more interesting is the mention of a “major international bank” because funnily enough we’ve been here before….

On the 23/08 SWAN failed to make payroll which caused the Unions to file a bankruptcy petition on the 26th. On the 31st, the same day that SWAN announced a 201 million euro loss for the first 6 months of the year, di.se published a story from ‘sources’ that SWAN were talking to a “major international bank”. This did two things; firstly it caused the share price to double in a day & it made the unions delay their bankruptcy petition for four days.
Does any of that sound slightly similar to the position that SWAN finds itself in this evening? I wonder if the unions can remember back to August….

Of course over at The Church Of The One True Saab they are basically saying this evening that Saab are saved and that everything is coming up roses. Lets see what the morning brings.

I like older SAABs, too, which is why I must point out that the GT 750 was only produced in 1958-60 and did not have triple carbs, whereas the triple-carbed Shrike engine was only available in 1968. The Shrike was a small-displacement version designed to sidestep US emissions requirements, not a high-performance version. There was also a GT 850 which had triple carbs, but again not the Shrike engine. Depending on model year, SAAB offered various two-stroke engines with triple carbs that were neither GT models nor Shrikes. Trust me on this one: I’ve got a pair of “ordinary” triple-carbed ’67 sedans and a ’68 V4 sedan sitting in my driveway. A nice overview of the SAAB three-cylinder engines is here:

http://vsaab.com/html/twostroke.htm

One novel aspect of the Shrike engine is that it came with a lifetime guarantee for the original owner. I believe there are a handful of original owners who still take advantage of this, but I suspect this may become a bit more difficult in the future.

The Bank of China is supposedly the new partner in the Saab resurrection. As if that will soften the deal for GM. I can see two downsides to this. With (state-owned) BoC, GM will face a tough vested interest in the near future. Muller’s SWAN will function as a puppet for the Chinese. GM can still hide behind its IP defense as a third party onlooker, empathic towards Saab, but whose main interest is to look after its shareholders.

The interesting question is, if GM can be forced to approve the new deal indirectly. Washington may say to GM: “Listen Akerson, we owe the Chinese, literally”. Must be close to $1.4 trillion. The other interesting point is how the Japanese will perceive all this. It looks like the Chinese are on a spending spree, bypassing the Japanese automakers by buying Western car brands. The Chinese are quick learners. I don’t think they will make the Rover-Roewe mistake twice.

While sitting in the departure hall (I did not say lounge) on the friggen frigid floor of a smog-enshrouded Beijing airport, may I please disabuse certain people of the whacko idea that the Chinese government wants Saab and that it somehow will bring its influence to bear on GM to comply.

Here is how the interests are situated:

– The prime interest of the Chinese government are the carmakers it directly owns: Changan, Dongfeng, FAW etc.
– A close second are the car companies owned by the powerful municipalities of Shanghai (SAIC) and Beijing (BAIC)
-Third down the ladder are carmakers owned (or heavily invested in) by lesser provinces
– Independents are way down the scale.

The Chinese government wants its carmakers to acquire technology. Pure brand deals are out.

As things stand, the Chinese government will be on the sides of SAIC (they already have access to that technology as JV partner of GM) and BAIC (they bought previous gen Saab tools and like them.) A sale to Youngman is not in the interest of these parties.